We sat at a card table, exchanging silliness, working on a puzzle. Though my mother’s faith, sense of humor and sharp wit never faded, her short-term memory had, leading to frustration when she knew there were things she had forgotten. Names and faces she should have known had faded into unclear spaces of a brilliant mind. If you have lived this experience, my heart is with you, my prayers are for you. With passing moments being like a new day, she was the happiest person I knew, all the bad was forgotten. I should strive to be more like that. Conversations were consumed with repeated questions, some with no easy answers. Yet I found we spoke more of things that mattered and repeated answers seemed to get better each time I said them.
Thumbing through my prayer journal at the time, I noticed quite a variation of requests; some fairly broad, others more specific. Hindsight has proven certain “non-answers” were exactly the answers I needed. Penciled circles around prayers began to tighten as true needs were discovered just as my answers improved with repetition.
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7
Yet if our requests are not aligned with God’s will, we may receive them in a different way, a better way. God is good like that. But who are we mortals that we could understand the will of God?
… We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. Romans 8:26
Good thing because my prayers are clumsy at best and often selfish. In repetition of asking, seeking and long walks with God, talking as old friends do, the inconsequential fades into the truly important.
I cherish each memory and would answer a thousand more questions for just another hour at the card table fitting pieces together. Grateful that God will do the same with us.
Thanks for spending a little time with me.
If you prefer turning real pages, pick up my book Echoes Intertwined
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